1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for the removal of granulocytes from blood and also to an apparatus suitable for use in the practice of the method. In particular, this invention is concerned with method and apparatus for removing granulocytes from blood taken out of a human body and then returning the treated blood to the same human body.
2) Description of the Related Art
The significant technical improvements in the screening and diagnosis of cancers in recent years, especially, the provision of new diagnostic techniques relying upon various images and permitting serum-dependent diagnoses has made a considerable contribution to the field of therapy.
These days, however, there is no satisfactory means or standard for making it possible to correctly grasp the conditions or pathema of a cancer patient per se, namely, a cancer-bearing host. As a method in use, there is nothing closer than the method relying upon the performance status (ECOS-PS) classification which is based on the grasp of usual physiological conditions through changes in hemogram or the like and the subjective symptom of the patient himself.
It has been clinically pointed out in full that even when a similar treatment is applied to cancer patients whose definite diagnosis has been made and who are not different as far as conventional background factors are concerned, their therapeutic results, prognoses and the like may differ significantly. No report has yet been known even on means for seizing differences in the conditions of the hosts, to say nothing of such factors.
Under the above-mentioned circumstances, the present inventor has found that the ratio in number of granulocytes (G) to lymphocytes (L) (hereinafter abbreviated as "G/L ratio") in the blood of a cancer patient serves as a marker which correctly reflects the conditions or pathema of the host. Namely, it has been found that changes in the G/L ratio correctly reflect the therapy sensitivity (refractoriness) and prognosis of a cancer bearing host and a cancer patient with a G/L ratio maintained within a normal range set based on normal subjects is sensitive to therapy, in other words, has good treatment results and the course and prognosis of the cancer are good.
The higher the G/L ratio, the more serious the treatment results, course and prognosis. In the case of a cancer patient immediately before his death, an abrupt increase in the G/L ratio is observed.
Accordingly, the G/L ratio of a cancer patient is the aforementioned desirable host marker and is believed to become an effective means for judging changes in pathema of a cancer bearing patient in the field of clinical therapy of a cancer.